For the first time, Maine is reporting climate pollution without federal data

For decades, Maine and other parties have relied on the federal government to publish comprehensive data on greenhouse gas pollution, the foundation for national and local climate policy.

The Environmental Protection Agency stopped publishing that data last year, when President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of international climate agreements. It was the first time in 30 years the agency failed to report information on the volume and source of greenhouse gasses.

Now Maine and other states are working with partners to compile and publish the data themselves.

“Fortunately, a little ray of hope, we have been able to work with the U.S. Climate Alliance and University of Maryland to backfill that dataset for all the states that were relying on it,” said Maine Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Melanie Loyzim in remarks to the Maine Climate Council.

Loyzim said release of the state’s latest report is delayed but it will come out before a December 2026 deadline.

The University of Maryland’s Center for Global Sustainability published a national emissions inventory in April. Researchers there are now updating a tool that states use to estimate their own greenhouse gas pollution and which the EPA has also failed to renew.

“National inventories provide the basis for understanding both what is happening across national economies and insight into policy strategies that may be valuable now and into the future,” said Center for Global Sustainability director Nate Hultman in an April press release.

Center staff declined an on-the-record interview request.

Maine’s biannual “greenhouse gas inventory” is required by state law. It estimates the amount of climate pollution such as carbon dioxide and methane released from vehicles, homes and businesses, industry and electricity production.

Maine also calculates how those emissions are offset by carbon stored in the state’s forests, peat bogs and other natural sinks.

The state has been tracking its emissions since 2004. It’s how Maine and other states determine progress toward emission reduction goals and set climate policy. Maine aims to cut climate pollution 45% from 1990 levels by 2030 and at least 80% by 2050.

But the EPA has, for decades, been the sole source of bedrock emissions data needed to compile state- and local-level reporting.

“Without the federal government collecting this data, there will be gaps and it will be difficult for the government to address climate change,” said Edwin LaMair, a staff attorney at the Environmental Defense Fund.

Alongside halting public reporting of national emissions, the EPA has also moved to repeal requirements for companies to disclose annual greenhouse gas pollution, LaMair added.

By abandoning annual emissions reports, the Trump administration is trying to bury scientific information and make it harder for states, tribes and local governments to take action on climate change, LaMair said.

“You cannot formulate policies to reduce greenhouse gasses, protect people from extreme weather, sea level rise, all the other impacts of climate change without knowing how much pollution is being released and where it is being released from,” LaMair said.

“It’s not just some data that the federal government takes in and publishes. It’s actually the foundation for U.S. climate policy, and that’s why it’s so critical,” LaMair added.

In a statement, the EPA said it stopped publishing data after President Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement and U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, which obligate nations to report emissions annually.

“Due to the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement, EPA did not publish the Greenhouse Gas Inventory, as well as state GHG inventories, in 2025 and 2026,” the agency said.